“Oh, you don’t want to gain anything more than happiness? That’s easy enough, of course!” said Madam Johnsen, laughing loudly. “Why, to be sure, in my pretty young days too the men wanted to go to the capital to make their fortunes. I was just sixteen when I came here for purposes of my own—where was a pretty girl to find everything splendid, if not here? One easily made friends—there were plenty to go walking with a nice girl in thin shoes, and they wanted to give her all sorts of fine things, and every day brought its happiness with it. But then I met a man who wanted to do the best thing by me, and who believed in himself, too. He got me to believe that the two of us together might manage something lasting. And he was just such a poor bird as I was, with empty hands—but he set to valiantly. Clever in his work he was, too, and he thought we could make ourselves a quiet, happy life, cozy between our four walls, if only we’d work. Happiness—pooh! He wanted to be a master, at all costs—for what can a journeyman earn! And more than once we had scraped a little together, and thought things would be easier now; but misfortune always fell on us and took it all away. It’s always hovering like a great bird over the poor man’s home; and you must have a long stick if you want to drive it away! It was always the same story whenever we managed to get on a little. A whole winter he was ill. We only kept alive by pawning all we’d got, stick by stick. And when the last thing had gone to the devil we borrowed a bit on the pawn-ticket.” The old woman had to pause to recover her breath.
“Why are we hurrying like this?” she said, panting. “Any one would think the world was trying to run away from us!”
“Well, there was nothing left!” she continued, shuffling on again. “And he was too tired to begin all over again, so we moved into the ‘Ark.’ And when he’d got a few shillings he sought consolation—but it was a poor consolation for me, who was carrying Hanne, that you may believe! She was like a gift after all that misfortune; but he couldn’t bear her, because our fancy for a little magnificence was born again in her. She had inherited that from us—poor little thing!—with rags and dirt to set it off. You should just have seen her, as quite a little child, making up the fine folks’ world out of the rags she got together out of the dustbins. ‘What’s that?’ Johnsen he said once—he was a little less full than usual. ‘Oh, that’s the best room with the carpet on the floor, and there by the stove is your room, father. But you mustn’t spit on the floor, because we are rich people.’”
Madam Johnsen began to cry. “And then he struck her on the head. ‘Hold your tongue!’ he cried, and he cursed and swore at the child something frightful. ‘I don’t want to hear your infernal chatter!’ That’s the sort he was. Life began to be a bit easier when he had drowned himself in the sewer. The times when I might have amused myself he’d stolen from me with his talk of the future, and now I sit there turning old soldiers’ trousers that fill the room with filth, and when I do two a day I can earn a mark. And Hanne goes about like a sleep-walker. Happiness! Is there a soul in the ‘Ark’ that didn’t begin with a firm belief in something better? One doesn’t move from one’s own choice into such a mixed louse’s nest, but one ends up there all the same. And is there anybody here who is really sure of his daily bread? Yes, Olsens with the warm wall, but they’ve got their daughter’s shame to thank for that.”
“All the more reason to set to work,” said Pelle.
“Yes, you may well say that! But any one who fights against the unconquerable will soon be tired out. No, let things be and amuse yourself while you are still young. But don’t you take any notice of my complaining—me—an old whimperer, I am—walking with you and being in the dumps like this—now we’ll go and amuse ourselves!” And now she looked quite contented again.
“Then take my arm—it’s only proper with a pair of sweethearts,” said Pelle, joking. The old woman took his arm and went tripping youthfully along. “Yes, if it had been in my young days, I would soon have known how to dissuade you from your silly tricks,” she said gaily. “I should have been taking you to the dance.”
“But you didn’t manage to get Johnsen to give them up,” said Pelle in reply.
“No, because then I was too credulous. But no one would succeed in robbing me of my youth now!”
The meeting was held in a big hall in one of the side streets by the North Bridge. The entertainment, which was got up by some of the agitators, was designed principally for young people; but many women and young girls were present. Among other things a poem was read which dealt with an old respectable blacksmith who was ruined by a strike. “That may be very fine and touching,” whispered Madam Johnsen, polishing her nose in her emotion, “but they really ought to have something one can laugh over. We see misfortune every day.”